When life as a curiously paired, young married couple in California--in the midst of a growing state and national economic crisis--becomes literally unworkable, Rodney, an earnestly toiling, playboy of a husband, unilaterally determines that he and P.V., his ambitious but naive, exotic wife, should relocate to Texas. So P.V., a struggling sophomore realtor and avid foodie, and Rodney, a newly unemployed marketer and sports addict, sell virtually everything they own and embark upon a downsized existence in the heart of North Texas--Dallas. But an eerie and horrifying morning dream that P.V. previously experienced becomes a dark and ever-unfurling, pain-filled prophesy that ultimately threatens the very foundations of their humanity. Sex, depravity, despair, and an uneven pavement of good intentions lead to a black, one-way road with a shocking and hair-raising end.Purchase your copy atAMAZON

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Q: How did you get the idea for the book?

A: So, in forever yesterdays, somewhere in a new section of Old Virginny, I was perched in the here-there-and-everywhere-strewn, starter apartment of a young male cousin of mine and his twentysomething wife--both relatively recent and flag-flying Greek Life college alums, like the main characters in my book. And there I observed the former, eyes twinkling, refer to his spouse as "wifey". I thought it pretty cool the way the word slid so smoothly down his tongue and big-boy-playfully out, from one smirking corner of his mouth--but it touched off an adverse wonder in my head, that eventually, in part, gave birth to my book. I specifically began almost viscerally pondering about some other households in the nation, wherein the term "wifey" was perhaps being conversely used to demean, diminish, destroy. Fast forward the pop culture clock, and "wifey" is now seamlessly a part of the contemporary parlance, referring to everything from indeed a wife, to a seven-star girlfriend or seriously should-be-spouse acquaintance/stranger. And it was just that--the term's continuing use and its expanded, 2013 reality--that gave rise to the storyline idea dough for my little work of contempo fiction, Wifey.Q: Can you tell us about your release?

A: Wifey walks through real-world, contemporary social and political justice themes, namely those of a dramatic change in socioeconomic status due to domestic/worldwide economic downturn; multicultural gender norms; gender disparity in marriage; domestic violence; multiculturalism and multiracialism; religion; and more. However, I wrote it to encompass and not to wedging, shove back--so it’s meant to eat light and lingeringly, and to seek, find the common or compassionate bud on you. Deliberately spliced with moments of real-world humor, and blended with an array of cultures beyond those that pop up in its excerpts, it attempts to ask the ‘what if’--in a time that was smartingly not too far removed from now.Q: Of all your characters, which one is your favorite?

A: All of my characters in Wifey have a mini me rummaging about within them--at least as regards their mother-approved extracurricular activities and behavior. So, as between blissfully-blended chocolates freshly popped onto a come-hither doily, it would be tough to tap, fave, claim, just one. Now, where some of them have clearly belly-flopped into the deepest of ends, I can only state that quite clearly, re-baptisms, full-immersion holy oil anointings, and a seemingly ceaseless run of astringent, self-help seminars are perhaps well in order, followed by some sort of unreasonably public 're-setting' ritual.Q: What was the most challenging aspect of writing your book?

A: Writing Wifey was inescapably painful, due to the very sad realities of my Mum, a stage IV uterine cancer, undergoing a grueling chemotherapy regimen and first set of radiation treatments, at exactly the same time as my scribing process. Add to that stew an escalating urge to usurp almost every moment not diverted to the care of her toward the penning of this book, and you have the sometime-dreamscape dish that is this, my first substantial work

Q: Describe your writing process. When and where did you write?

A: Wifey was primarily penned flat on my smarting back at all unlivable hours in my bed, draped long-limbed over seeming, lifetimes-accrued-uncomfy hospital chairs, and tuckered, in full-running Park, with the windows cracked open and my nose mashed up against the lid of a Tall whatever-whathaveyou from Ye-Olde-Saint-Starry-bucks--in between the time that hobbled about the devastation that then was. Q: What projects are you currently working on?

A: I would love to tongue-and-tell here, re: future works (or more appropriately sometimes, given my life's grayscale realities--'kiss-and-kvetch'), but my maternal Grandmum did teach me to keep a good secret's mouth well shut, and I am also, essentially, yet at the freshly-cracked-egg stage of my career. So, suffice it to say, since many of us writers were almost literally birthed ruminating and reducing all down, the principles of probability says I've likely definitely developed some sort of a backlog, somewhere of sorts. And I think I’m going to have to, with a wink and brow-raise, leave it at that for now, lest I be visited by Grandmum’s disapproving apparition--as she was always in my pure, younger life, only half-jokingly threatening to one day do.

About the Author:

Fey Ugokwe was born in Washington, D.C., to immigrant parents--one from British Guiana, South America, and the other from Nigeria, West Africa. She was subsequently raised in Pennsylvania, and attended both college and law school in Massachusetts. Fey is an attorney, and the founder of a socially-conscious media activity. At the age of three, she was taught to read and write by her maternal grandmother, a British-trained schoolteacher, and has been writing fiction and poetry since a child. She received her formal training in novel writing, genre fiction writing, contemporary fiction writing, and political fiction writing in Massachusetts, where her professors included renowned authors at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Her interests are, namely, in genre, contemporary, and political fiction, and she has a strong interest in uniquely combining the essences of the three, in order to highlight the underpinnings of the human experience.